


our honeymoon

by sanquiine (occultine)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, Artist Steve Rogers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Body Dysphoria, Bottom Steve Rogers, Character Study, Depression, Dissociation, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, steve is in a very bad place, takes place before the battle of new york
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22202734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occultine/pseuds/sanquiine
Summary: How Steve Rogers loses, and then finds, himself in a world he did not grow up in.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 55
Kudos: 163





	1. say you want me too

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place just after steve is defrosted and basically ignores like every other movie (or ill just take this bits i want and then just,, ignore the rest?) and is more of a self indulgent character study kind of thing so if u have any ideas for plot or anything, please comment!!
> 
> lastly!!! there are triggers in the tags, so please stay safe!! there isn't anything super heavy in this chapter, but if there is in layer chapters, i will clarify also.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 1 (may 4) : ok i just edited and rewrote this chapter a little because it was so awful and ugly and i still Hate it but alas.
> 
> also! this chapter uses 'aphrodite' (the greek goddess of love) as a metaphor for love. i didn't want it to be super super confusing because my writing can be? so i just thought i would mention it.

CHAPTER ONE

  
  


He drinks his grief with a shot of vodka that burns his tongue and ignites his skin, a flask in his trembling fingertips and heartache in his teeth. He can't feel anything but a hollow sense of dread that decays in his chest and a hopelessness that makes him itch with anxiety, as the morning sunrise leaks through the blinds and across his blotching skin. 

Purple blooms underneath his eyes like bruises, and he's shaking- he can't stop  _ shaking.  _ Drinks his grief with a shot of vodka, bites his lips, bites his tongue, teeth marks soon melting into marble perfection before they can taint the perfection of the american dream. Honeyed yellow streaks across the table in shards and shatters into golden glitter, sparkling in his unkempt hair. 

Aphrodite dances her gentle touch over his skin, feather like fingertips drawing his veins in dark charcoal, and she curls her lips into a snarl and laughs a cruel sound that echoes through his ears, links her fingers into a prison that she traps him behind. Love wraps it's clammy fingers around his throat and squeezes, and he gives and he gives and he  _ gives _ . Aphrodite wraps her clammy fingers around his throat and squeezes, and she takes and she takes and she takes. 

He drinks his grief with a shot of vodka that he knows won’t do anything to him anymore, and he can't stop thinking about death. 

Bucky's face burns into his thoughts, his laugh, his eyes, his voice, the scrawl of his handwriting and the dramatics in his speech. The way he would put his hand on the small of Steve's back as if he were just another of his  _ dames.  _ The tender touch of his fingertips and a cloth when he cleaned the blood from Steve's face for what seemed like the thousandth time that week. His sharp jaw and dark hair, soft eyes, piercing eyes, long fingers and-

_ (“I'm with you 'till the end of the line!”) _

He drinks and he can't stop thinking about Bucky, his mother, Peggy, Bucky's sisters, his mother, his father, Bucky, the smoke that choked his fragile lungs and the cold that swept through his bones. 

Morning sunlight filters through the blinds and hides in the crevices of the pale walls, over the dark marble of the kitchen counters. The bitter smell of coffee lingers in the air and keeps his thoughts detached from the present, too familiar and haunting to keep him grounded. Goosebumps prickle across his fingers from where they rest on the table. 

It is quiet. Aphrodite pours him another shot. It burns his throat.   
  


6am melts into 9am in what feels like minutes, and he sits, watches the black TV screen and listens to the radio's silence. Exhaustion caves into his bones as his breaths rattle through his chest, and the discoloured skin on his knuckles knits back together as if there was never anything there at all. 

His phone buzzes a few times from where it sits cold on the table, flashing screen illuminating the cracks in the screen and dancing across the shadows of the ceiling.

His phone buzzes but he can't bring himself to check it, although he sees SHIELD’s name and SHIELD never texts him unless it is important. Dread churns in his stomach, a heavy weight and feather touches of a foreboding fear, but he doesn't touch his phone. 

6am melts into 9am, and he can't stop thinking about death. 

  
  


By the time it reaches 11am, his stomach aches, and he moves from the kitchen to the living room as a record he doesn't recognize plays in the turntable. His phone buzzes again. The screen flashes; he turns the other way. 

The lights hum above his head, lulling him into an aimless trance of nostalgia that the room is steeped in, mind drifting further and further away into an alleyway of .37, of gritty concrete and dust in his lungs, dust in his bones. 

Stares at the bare, crème walls with memories crawling their way into his mouth and down his throat, choking him, pulsating through his veins, humming under his skin like the bright lights above him do. He stares at the walls with a yearning for the past thriving in his mind, bones, blood, teeth, lungs, heart -

At 12pm he takes a shower and cries to the sound of his heartbeat. 

*

*

  
  


Shield is watching him, he thinks, he  _ knows.  _ It has predatory eyes and wandering hands, watching and listening and learning and lurking in his walls, waiting waiting  _ waiting _ for him. Shield is watching him and he is watching Shield; he listens to the humming of the walls, too quiet for them to have noticed but not quiet enough for him to have not, and hides in blind spots from the cameras when he wants to disappear. 

Across the hall, there is a woman with red hair and unreadable eyes, who greets him when she sees him and has these almost silent footsteps that he hears when he doesn't think he should. Shield is watching him and he thinks she is too. The walls and lights are humming.

Aphrodite dresses him in a dark shirt that reminds him of Bucky and his passionate eyes. She holds out a leather jacket that he wears with tender touches, feather touches, smelling of coffee and smoke and  _ Bucky.  _ Aphrodite ignites the heartache in his chest and lets it burn across his skin, and Steve checks his phone for the sake of doing something even though he already did two minutes ago. 

He reads Fury's message again and swallows the bile in his throat, trying to confine his worry into a cage he can throw away and stop it from spreading through his blood.

It's a Bad Day and he knows this (thinks Shield probably knows it too), as heaviness spirals through his bones like lead (lead bones, metal bones) and the pain in chest bleeds from his heart and -

Aphrodite caresses his skin with champagne stained fingers and leaves her lipstick on his lips, kisses him as though she is starved of affection, passion heating her skin until it ignites and leaving his own smoking. Captivating and tantalising: her eyes, touch, skin and hair, beautiful and dangerous and heartbreaking as she digs her fingernails into his heart and rips it apart.

(He thinks of Bucky and the Howling Commandos, the cold nights in Brooklyn when he had curled around Bucky for warmth as he had worked extra hours just to keep them fed because Steve was too fucking  _ useless _ to help in a way that mattered). 

Aphrodite has a cruel laugh and merciless hands, and she dresses him in a jacket that smells of Bucky before she leaves him with a hollow stomach and hopelessness in his chest. 

SHIELD is watching him and he is watching SHIELD. He's not sure if he is really here. 

  
  


*

  
  


A SHIELD car comes to pick him up at 5:30, and he climbs in with shaking hands in his pockets and face impassive. The ride is silent, and there is poetry to be written about the sky, poetry to read about the wildfire of reds and oranges and purples that leak from the stars and onto the earth.

It is strange still, to see the world like this, with a colour and rawness that he could never have imagined with his weak eyes and dusty skies. Steve wonders what Bucky would say if he were here, if he would describe the colours with his beautiful words for Steve to paint, if he would sit with Steve on the rusty railing outside their apartment and find colours in the sky they didn't even know existed. 

(Nothing had existed but the euphoria that would drip from the sky and into their awaiting palms, pool in Bucky's eyes until they were golden and glow in his smile. Nothing  _ mattered  _ but the heaven he could hold in his small palms in those moments, when they didn't have to think about anything but each other and the sky). 

He looks away from the window, and has to remind himself he is real.

  
  
  


“Thank you,” he says to the driver as he steps away from the curb, even though the sound echoes in his ears and the world around him is so  _ bright _ , the dark sky almost impossible to make out against the striking lights around him. 

Everything is so  _ big _ , so unfamiliar, so daunting, and he digs his nails into his palms to keep his face blank. Bites his lip and feels it heal under his tongue, feels the sharp sting as the skin binds together again. The world is big and unfamiliar and loud and  _ fast _ ; nothing stays still long enough to remember- he's not sure if he ever will.

The world is thick around him. It smells of tires and rubber and he can  _ hear _ the electricity buzzing through the air, buzzing beneath his feet, in the cars, in the people. It is 2012 and this is not the world he remembers. (This is not the world he died for, he can’t help but think). 

  
  


He has a box of cigarettes in his pocket that reminds him of Bucky, even though the box has changed like everything else he used to know has and nothing can be the same as it used to be. Bucky used to smoke on the fire escape when things were getting bad -

(although he never told Steve that, lying in their shared bed with this winter's pneumonia as Bucky smoked a cigarette outside looking like a goddamn painting. He would return with tired eyes and smelling of smoke, a smell Steve thinks he would like to make a candle out of just to burn it everyday to smell the dangerous nostalgia) -

\- as the sunsets would paint him in gold before the darkness set it, shimmering on his sharp jawline that Steve liked to run his fingers over, burning gold, burning divinity like this  _ god  _ he thinks Bucky could have been. 

He has a box of cigarettes in his pocket that he wraps his fingers around, Aphrodite's kiss lingering on his sore lips. (What the others don't find out, won't hurt them; they don't have to know anything). 

Stark Tower looms over him like a warning. He sends a prayer to a God he isn't sure exists anymore and clenches his teeth together. He shouldn't be nervous- fuck  _ he shouldn't be nervous _ . This is his  _ team _ , his comrades, those who he will watch the backs of if they watch his in return.

(He can almost feel the Howling Commandos turning over in their graves. They  are were his  _ team _ . They  are were his  _ friends _ ). 

He shouldn't be nervous. He can do this. He can do this. He can do this.  He can't do this. He can't do this. Fuck he can't do this.

(It is 2012 and all his friends are dead. This is not the world he remembers).  
  


He is not late to the party, although it feels as though he is. 

It is in full swing by the time he arrives, and nobody really notices him slipping through the doors. There are crowds everywhere, sipping on brightly coloured drinks and talking and dancing, a constant drone of noise in his ears that seems to echo, somehow. 

He's not sure where he is, really, somewhere in Stark tower with high ceilings and white floors and bright lights and-

He spots  Howard Tony Stark and turns the other way. (He's not sure if he can deal with that right now). 

A woman with dark hair and sleazy eyes offers him a drink and her body, small hands coming to rest on his arm and eyes half lidded and -

\- (and tour girls dancing their fingers over his skin, red on their lips, their cheeks, his neck, lewd dances and suggestive words, breaths smelling of cheap alcohol and want. Bile in his mouth and breath on his lips, clawing for air and innocence, pretty girls hanging from his arms and -)

\- and he pushes past her before she notices his grimace. He’s not quite sure what year it is. 

Drinks and slicked back hair, sweaty hands on his skin, rich men with dark suits and more money than he could have ever dreamed of, watching the women as if only another object they can buy. Champagne and wine, red (on their lips, their cheeks, his neck) dresses and sharp eyes. 

He takes another glass of something dark and red and drinks it in one. It burns.

  
  
  


The night progresses and the sky falls apart into darkness and he thinks maybe he does a little too. There are more drinks, more dancing, more oily hair and sleazy eyes, handshakes and pleasantries. Nobody looks for him and he looks for nobody, managing to weave through the crowds when anybody catches his eyes. 

(He shouldn't be nervous - there is nothing to be afraid of). 

The sky is black and endless and he leans over the railing, a glass of something sparkling and gold in his hand. Breathes deeply, skin prickling with the cold, and lets the fresh air race over his skin. 

Everything is so  _ big _ and everything is  _ wrong _ . This is not America, this is not  _ him,  _ this is not the America he grew in, loved in,  _ lived  _ in. It is the beginning in the end - he doesn't think he will wake up at home again. 

“Captain?”

It startles him, the voice, low and gravelly, and he turns quickly as spiderweb cracks blossom on his glass. If Fury notices, he doesn't comment. Beside him is his redheaded neighbor, who he had never learnt the name of, he realises. Her dark dress clings to her figure in a way he thinks he would have found beautiful a century ago, perfect makeup glittering on his face and hair curled glamorously. 

“Director,  _ neighbor, _ ” he greets, stepping away from the railing. He searches their faces for emotion but they are too trained, too  _ good _ at this, to reveal anything but that of which they want to. 

The red head narrows her eyes, but says nothing. “I see that you've met Agent Romanoff, Captain. Understand that-”

“It was necessary? I know, it's fine, I understand.” He hopes he doesn't sound as tired as he feels. (What they don't know won't hurt them; they don't have to know anything).

Agent Romanoff stares at him with unreadable eyes. “Are you coming to join us?” She asks. (What they don't know won't hurt them. They don't-)

“I'll be right there,” he replies, stepping away from the railing and to the large glass doors of the balcony. “Excuse me.”

*

Tony Stark greets him with bravado and a smile too charismatic to be genuine. The bright lights shimmer on his face, the glass in his hand, the pearly white of his teeth and Steve isn't sure what to say, isn't sure what he  _ can _ say. 

The resemblance is striking and disorientating.  Howard stands opposite him . Stark's goatee is perfect; he wears a dark blue jacket, white shirt and grey tie, and Steve guesses no doubt he can see the shock on Steve's face.

He's seen the photos, the videos, the news broadcasts. He's read the stories and the news about Tony Stark, millionaire, philanthropist, but  _ this _ \- being able to see the laugh lines and the darkness of his hair up close, is stunting, stinging, makes his stomach churn with dread and chest ache with grief. 

(He's not sure what year it is anymore - he's not sure who he is anymore). 

“Nice to meet you, finally, Cap,” Stark says, eyes dark and guarded and arms crossed over his stomach and -

\- (and he looks exactly like Howard did, one month ago 70 years ago, raving about a new design or whatever he goddamn wanted to talk about, because he was _Howard Stark_ and he was a genius in a world not ready to feel it)-

\- and Steve manages to swallow his tongue and the bile in his throat. 

He smiles, although he thinks Stark can see the shaking of his hands and the torment blooming in his eyes, and says, “it's a pleasure to meet you too, Stark,” to a man he thinks is another.

Steve swallows the panic rising in his throat and excuses himself. (He can't do this again).

  
  


He can feel eyes following him, tracing his movements, his steps. He has an itching in his spine and an aching in his  _ teeth _ , a longing for bitter coffee and smoke, cinnamon and cheap pencils. 

The glass in his hand sends goosebumps up his hand and he's being watched - he's being  _ watched  _ and it makes him want to sink into the floor, to disappear, to fall off the grid, too familiar with the feeling of hungry eyes on him to shake the nerves eating at his stomach. 

The glass in his hand cracks (he ignores that it is the second one that night- he needs to control himself), and he turns and discreetly drops it in the kitchen bin. There are eyes watching him and he wants to disappear. (He only  likes liked when Bucky  watches watched him).

  
  
  


Bruce Banner is the quiet presence he wishes he could be: the peacekeeper, the secluded scientist, 

the one that diffuses a fight rather than fuels it. He has the patience Steve wishes he could have-  _ can't  _ have, too angry and too used to feeling like he doesn't fit into his body quite right. 

Bruce Banner speaks to him with a soft voice and mellow words, and Steve trembles under the weight of his gentle gaze. His dark hair shines in the lights that Steve thinks are too harsh for him, the curls shadowing his face as if he wants to hide it. 

“It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr. Banner, I've heard a lot about your work.” 

And then: “Are you alright, Captain, you look pale?

And then: “ _ what? _ ” He curls his fingers into his palms. “Oh right, yeah, I'm fine, sorry.”

(His heart is in his throat, and this is not the world he remembers). 

  
  
  


“You are the  _ Avengers.” _

And then: “The  _ what,” _ he thinks Stark says.

And then: “The-”

  
  
  
  


Before he leaves, Agent Romanoff catches his arm and he turns to face her, the red of her hair reminding him of wildfire and sunsets. She looks at him with searching eyes framed by black eyeliner and lashes, Peggy and her stunning brilliance in his thoughts at Romanoff's red lips. She catches his gaze on her lips (what they don't know, won't hurt them - they don't have to know anything), and he quickly averts his gaze to her eyes. (What the others don't know wont -)

“We are meeting tomorrow at Shield headquarters,” she states, and he bites down the bile in his throat at the thought of seeing  Howard Stark again. “We would like for you to be there.”

She leaves with quiet footsteps he doesn't think he should be able to hear, Peggy lingering in the back of his mind, her warmth on the skin of his fingers. She leaves with quiet footsteps and he almost falls through the doors into the cold night air.

There is a Shield car waiting for him. 

  
  
  


His apartment is cold and frigid, the walls buzzing with electricity and lights in the hallway so bright they sting his sensitive eyes. He kicks off his shoes and makes for the bathroom, not bothering to take off his jacket or turn on the lights.

Bucky runs his feather touch over Steve's skin and Aphrodite's lipstick stains his teeth and -

( - and cinnamon and smoke, a dirty fire escape and charcoal smeared across his face. Sunlight paints Bucky in gold and Steve paints him in soft strokes, beautiful and divine with a piece of the gods running through his veins. Gold splashes across his cheekbones the way Steve does with paint, laid across their hard wooden floor with an  _ idea _ and - )

\- and her hands caress his throat.

He makes to the bathroom, where he knows there aren't any cameras because he has checked once twice three times four - 

There are no cameras in the bathroom. He cannot hear them humming. 

Beneath his feet, the floor is cold, too cold, too cold, too cold, and he drags a duvet from his room and sets it across the floor so that he can sit on it. He sits and wraps the duvet around his legs, hidden from the cameras, hidden from  _ SHIELD _ , even though he knows they are doing this for the greater good, knows things that they think he doesn’t.

Aphrodite drinks his grief with a shot of vodka and cries at his heartache, gentle fingers coming to rest on his hands to stop them from shaking. Bucky kisses the dread on his lips as though it is wine, as though it is clarity, as though there is something left to salvage. Steve holds his heart with his hands and waits for Bucky to take it. He doesn’t. He won’t. Fine.


	2. singing soft grunge just to soak up the noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is offered a job and Natasha is perceptive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before we start i just want to say i love tony with my entire heart and i kinda agree with him in this chapter but both he and steve and struggling with the other not being who they think they should be, so he appears to be a bit hostile here, but i am in no way character bashing because they all need love.

**CHAPTER TWO - SINGING SOFT GRUNGE JUST TO SOAK UP THE NOISE**

> He goes to Brooklyn searching for ghosts, stands on the black tarmac with his old self rattling in his bones. Can almost imagine Bucky's charming smile and golden laugh, the gentle curve of his lips, the softness of his touch, fingertips coming to rest on his own in the privacy of the darkness. Black tarmac turns solid in his bones and slaps against his feet, puddles reflecting back a man he’s not sure he recognises anymore.

(His old self rattles in his bones and Bucky grabs his hand, sweeps his thumb over the back of his hand with a touch so gentle it makes him fall apart in the warm darkness of their apartment. He smells of cigarettes and cinnamon, cigarettes and late nights and tired eyes ringed by purple. Steve has thin wrists and collarbones that show through his clothes, and he can’t- he _can’t_ \- let Bucky waste their little food on him when he is already wasting away like this). 

He finds a café with pastel yellow tables and mellow voices swept away into the buzz of the city. The waitress has pink lips and a yellow shirt, eyelashes so long he thinks _must_ be fake, eyelids glittering in gold and silver. She greets him with a smile and leaves with one too, pearly teeth flashing white in the sunlight. 

“Can I get you anything?” She asks, and her voice is as soft as he would have expected it to have been, nothing like the sharp edges of 2012 Brooklyn. 

He orders the first thing he sees (it all tastes the same, anyways: bitter and like ash on tongue). She smiles and nods, leaves with a smile, leaves with her heels clicking against the floor in a way that itches underneath his skin. 

He goes to Brooklyn searching for ghosts. (Perhaps he is one too)

  
  


*

Bucky is dead and there is that.

His mother is dead and there is that.

The Howling Commandos are dead and there is that.

(Steve Rogers is dead and there is that)

*

  
  


(-Bucky throws an arm over Steve's shoulders and he feels as though his heart is going to burst-).

There is an art shop on the corner next to the café, and it had these big windows and a white painted door, expensive paints he had always dreamed about getting displayed on shelves of blue. He stands on the tarmac with nostalgia in his veins, aching in his veins, his reflection staring back with eyes that aren't his own and -

-and inside there is a boy with sandy blonde hair and thin wrists, fingertips running over the watercolours with gentle touches of tender longing. ( - and there is boy with - ) 

There is a boy with sharp bones and thin fingers and Steve can't _breathe._

( _-Bucky says, “its okay, Stevie, I can work some-_ ”)

( - and there is a boy with sandy blonde hair and - ) Steve steps to the wooden door and the city humms underneath his feet.

( _-It is 1939 and Steve has a pencil in one hand and a sketchbook in the other, Bucky lay sprawled over their coffee table with a cigarette between his lips and his eyes young and wild. Steve draws him with soft strokes as his beautiful laughter echoes through his chest-_ )

He buys himself the best paints he can see - _because he can do that now_ \- and when the sandy haired boy stares at him with jealous eyes shadowed by dark circles and tired hands, he buys him whatever he wants, too, with that dark card SHIELD had given him even if he doesn't quite understand it yet. 

(Later, in the privacy of his apartment, he reads the receipt and vomits until he's light headed, the numbers burning themselves into his thoughts and he can't help but think that that much money would have been enough for his mother's medicine if she wasn't spending it on him instead and that much money would have been enough to--)

  
  


*

He puts the paints in The Cupboard beside his bed because even though now his head is clearer and he can _breathe_ again, he doesn’t think he can face anything that reminds him of the past so much. (Peggy’s file is in the cupboard too, even though he can remember her address and phone number and email and - and -). He puts the paints in The Cupboard and tells himself he will paint when he is ready- tells himself that he _will_ be ready one day. (Swallows down the doubt in his throat).

The clock on his almost bare walls tells him it is 10: 22, and he is meeting The Team at 12: 00 despite the dread curling in his stomach, resting like a lead weight on his bones. Bucky’s cologne lingers in the air and the wooden floor is cold against his bare feet. Beside his bedroom door, there is his mostly unpacked bag and his shield. (This does not mean anything).

Like yesterday, a SHIELD car comes to pick him up, his insistence that he could walk dismissed. Absentmindedly, he notices it is the same driver as it was yesterday, and déjà vu hits him like a punch to the stomach and--

(-and tour girls dancing their fingers over his skin, red on their lips, their cheeks, his neck, lewd dances and suggestive words-)

\-- and he stares at his hands that are too _big_ as the agent drives in silence. 

SHIELD headquarters waits for him with hungry hands. (He doesn't think these hands are his own). 

  
  


*

  
  


Romanoff's red hair burns fire in the light and her hands are flat against the table, her voice like silk when she speaks. “So, how's the 21st century treating you?” She asks, although he thinks she somehow already knows what he is going to say. 

“It's not- it's okay, I guess - different, of course but…” He shrugs, feels her analytical eyes on him. 

“I'm sure Fury would like you to get back into things: missions, for SHIELD. Only the most dangerous for America's _greatest soldier_ , of course.”

Bitterness seeps through the roof of his mouth and he swallows hard. “Couldn't wait, I guess,” he says, and it sounds a lot more bitter than he had intended it to be “Is that why we are all here - missions?”

Romanoff laughs, and it is a hollow sound, a sour sound, and Steve watches as her face settles into placid stone before she speaks. “Don't sound so upset, soldier. I'm sure they'll let you keep the uniform.”

He makes a face, scrunches up his nose because he thinks wearing the same suit as he used to (when everything was good) in the war might just make him cry. “It was nice to properly meet you, Romanoff - no matter how upsetting it is that we are no longer neighbors.” He pouts, and she smiles a little.

When he turns away to leave, Romanoff calls, “Please, call me Natasha.”

*

  
  


As it turns out, Stark isn't there at all. Director Fury sits Steve and Natasha around a small table somewhere in his office and lets him taste the prospect of a job on his tongue. He tells him a new world in need of protection, of safety, and Steve stares at the hands he's not quite sure are his and tries to keep his breathing even. He can't stop thinking about both everything and nothing. He can't stop - 

“Captain,” someone - Fury - says, and his head snaps up to attention, feeling his skin begin to burn from embarrassment. “Is this not _patriotic_ enough for you,” he continues, and Steve can hear the sarcasm in his voice, the dryness, and he laces his hands together underneath the table to calm himself. 

He clenches his jaw, says, “sorry, you were saying?” and avoids Natasha trying to catch his eye. This is not the time for quiet assessment.

“To say it plainly, I'm offering you a job, as an agent for SHIELD.”

_(- And then: “I'm sorry son, but i'm going to have to let you go. I don't think you're cut out for this kind of work, I'm” -)_

Steve considers, and pauses, as Natasha interjects with, “you don't have to decide right now,” with red hair curled around her fingers, as Fury says, “take your time to think about it.” Steve looks at his (big) hands and exhales slowly. 

“I'll think about it,” he replies, “thank you.”

  
  


*

  
  


Natasha studies him as he stares at his hands with a kind of fragile distance she almost pities, although she knows he does not want to be pitied, knows that he does not want much. She studies him as his studies his hands, and Fury's voice sits like a weight in her mind, growing restless as Rogers continues to stare at his hands and she knows that Fury is going to -

“Captain,” and Roger's eyes snap up, squares his shoulders, bites his tongue. “Is this not _patriotic_ enough for you,” and Natasha stares at him intently, notices he is trying to avoid her gaze and notices the muscles in his arms are tense before she redirects her focus. She watches him as he studies the table - this is not the time for quiet assessment. 

Rogers swallows and she can read him like a book, a novel, all hopeful starts and tragic endings and lost loves. She watches him regard Fury with a naive interest, which morphs into almost disbelief at the mention of a _job_ . Quickly, he masks it and leaves with a sweet smile that would make most of America want to cry at his feet, shoulders squared and jaw set and Natasha feels as though there is something _more_ \- but this is not the time for quiet assessment. 

They watch him leave and stay seated, Natasha crossing her arms over her stomach as Fury raises his brows. “Are you sure this is the best thing to do?” She asks, and there is more she wants to say, more she thinks she _should_ say but - 

“He doesn't have to agree.”

Natasha narrows her eyes. “But you know he will.”

“The world is becoming more dangerous. We need to be prepared.”

“I think someone is going to regret that.”

They stare at each other intently, scrutinizing, Natasha unable to bury the thought that _something is going to go wrong_ , as Fury puts his hands on the table and waits. Natasha stares at him as he stares at her, and they are quiet. 

*

The afternoon rolls by, and the white floors of SHIELD gleam with luminosity. In the hallways, her footsteps are silent, and SHIELD agents watch her with both curiosity and fear. It is nothing new, and she is not intimidated. She meets their eyes and sometimes smiles. 

She spots Captain America sitting on one of the window ledges, staring out on to the city with his hands linked together on his lap. She wonders what would happen if she joined him, but figured it would only bring a flush to his cheeks and an odd look, so she continues walking and sips the coffee in her hand. It burns her tongue a little. She keeps drinking. 

Clint is still on a mission somewhere in France and Natasha tries to swallow the nerves nestled in her stomach, eating at her thoughts. She knows he is capable, knows him better than she thinks anyone else does, but it's difficult to suppress the anxiety crawling over her skin at thought it could have been the last time she has -

She knows Clint better than everyone, and he will be _fine._ He will be -

“ - Fine! I guess I will just _suffer._ ” 

Stark rounds the corner, calling behind him with a tablet in one hand and screwdriver in the other. A dark shirt stained with grease and a size too big hands off from him, his jeans smudged in black and beard a little longer than normal, she notices. Underneath his eyes, shadows of exhaustion stain like oil on his skin, and when he meets her eyes, she can see the red tinge to them. 

“Ah, my favourite assassin,” he greets, “is your murder buddy back yet? Killed anyone yet?” She wonders if she scares him, even though he throws jabs at her as he does anyone else, and it doesn't bother her, not really, because she can understand that sometimes his humour is all the keeps his sane - she wonders if they know that she knows so much, and then wonders how naïve they would be to not. 

She sweeps her eyes over the group of SHIELD agents huddled around one of their phones, laughing, grinning, pointing at something at the screen. “No,” she replies, finally looks Stark in the eye to see how he reacts. She tilts her head to one side. “And no, but there's still time.” 

Stark breathes a laugh, and it sounds tired and mirrors what she can guess feels inside. Natasha stares. “You look like you might drop dead any minute now, maybe _you_ should be my next victim.” 

“Very funny - as if _I_ could die with Fury watching me like a fucking hawk which, by the way, it's kinda creepy so I would appreciate it if you turned off the camera's in the bathrooms before I do it myself,” he says pointedly, looking to a small, flashing camera in the corner of the wall where the corridor turns left. 

Sometimes Natasha smiles, and she rolls her eyes and scoffs. “You gotta find the blind spots, Stark.”

They both continue walking, and there is that.

*

Steve stares, and _oh_ how unsettling it is, to see sleek cars and modern buildings of so many windows and flashing lights; how disorientating it is, to see people wearing clothes he didn't even know existed and talking about people he doesn't know. 

(Once, a few days after The Ice, and he was slipping in and out of wanting to scream and living in denial, he walked through Manhattan with a heaviness in his chest and his tongue bitten. And there - and there were these two _men_ , holding hands, walking down the streets as though nothing calm harm them. It was bittersweet, and it was beautiful melancholy, both pleased that it's _okay_ now to be like _that_ , but unable to forget the image of the man living above him bloody and still in a back alley, dried come and blood on his face and an imprint of a boot on his stomach - and - and - he can't help but feel a sick sense of humour in his throat when he realises _this_ is the world Bucky would have wanted, Steve always too cynical and bitter to be optimistic like Bucky).

He stares, and does not notice Stark's approaching footsteps until he feels his presence behind him. He turns, and swallows, and catches his breath in his throat, and digs his fingers into his palms and -

“Fury just couldn't help himself, could he?”

Steve blinks, and holds his breath, and says, “excuse me?” with his heart in his throat. 

Stark rolls his eyes, and there is something hostile about him, something that makes Steve's skin itch. “Fury couldn't wait to get his hands on you - we've all read the files, Cap, Fury's not going to wait two seconds to make you SHIELD's soldier.”

“I'm not going to be SHIELD's soldier,” he bites back, even though his tone is flat and his mouth tastes on metal. He doesn't trust SHIELD and he doesn't think Stark does either, and there are shadows beneath his eyes that tell him he is working on something, thinking of something. 

Stark scoffs and rolls his eyes again, and Steve has to clench his hands into fists to stop himself from rising to the bait. He can feel his blood begin to bubble in his veins. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. -

(and that is funny because nothing _does_ )

-because we both know it's true. I'm working my _ass_ off trying to figure out what the hell SHIELD wants with the rest of us because I'm sure as _hell_ not about to become some SHIELD lapdog like you.”

Steve swallows, and catches his breath in his throat, and digs his nails into his palms and -

“I'm not going to be -” he starts, before he realises Stark is looking at something over his shoulder and he doesn't _care_ what Steve has to say because he is nothing like _Howard_ and there is that. Steve decides he doesn't care what Stark has to say; he spins on his heels and out of SHIELD's doors. He wishes Bucky was still here. 

  
  


*

  
  
  


Stark's words ring in his head and above the sky is ominous and grey, the buildings towering and looming, city loud and humming. He walks, keeping his head down and hands in his pockets and it is difficult to keep his anger from spilling from his pores because he is _not_ going to be SHIELD's lapdog - he is not going to be another dancing monkey. Steve's feet feel heavy and his bones ache. He wishes Bucky was still here. 

Both Fury and Stark sit in his mind like a lead weight. (“To say it plainly, I'm offering you a job, as an agent for SHIELD," Fury says). He considers his options as he walks and tries to keep himself calm, even though he wants nothing more than to go to the gym and punch something until his knuckles bleed. Logically, he _knows_ Fury wants him to bow his head and follow SHIELD quietly, and he knows that Stark despises being controlled in the same way Howard did. He knows that SHIELD is watching him, but he knows that they are doing it for some kind of greater good he can't yet understand, and he knows that SHIELD is -

He knows that Fury wants him to save the world. Who would he be to refuse that? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh steve


	3. and i lost myself, when i lost you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she smiles at him wider, and he has to remind himself he is alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so lots of warnings for this chapter, please stay safe !!  
> graphic descriptions of dead bodies and gore (mutilation, etc), violence, implied holocaust mention (but not very clear), minor self harm, minor panic attacks, dissociation, implied suicide, suicidal thoughts, suicidal ideation. steve is not good at all in the chapter :)

**AND I LOST MYSELF, WHEN I LOST YOU**

He calls Fury at 9:46 after sitting by the phone for half an hour. Fury picks up immediately. Steve exhales. 

“Captain, what do I owe this pleasure?”

Steve inhales. “I'll accept,” he says. 

Fury says, “great.” The line goes dead. Steve exhales. 

*

Rain sweeps across the street in a curtain of murky haze, pierced only by streaks of the bright, artificial lights of the streetlamps. It hits the cobbled street with heavy sounds that shatter the quiet peace of the night, collecting in pools of shimmering, moonlight stained puddles. Underneath their umbrella, a couple stand with their arms around each other, swaying as they walk, holding each other with a kind of bittersweet melancholy that exists only in the early hours of the morning, before the sun has risen and dew has settled across the ground, the first lights of the morning dotting the world in the soft glow of the sunrise. It is still peaceful, in a loud, rainy kind of way, with the rain almost freezing and the street filled with puddles, the raindrops glowing incandescent in the moonlight. The air is fresh, smelling of rain and wet autumn nights, the puddles looking like nothing more than pools of liquid silver, glimmering through the haze that hangs above the street and dusts across the rooftops. It would be quiet, almost silent, if not for the rain, and the steady hum of cars streaming down the streets, their headlights cutting through the mist like searchlights. Somewhere, a siren is wailing. Steve inhales.

It is somewhere nearing 3am and the rain is silver. Something like electricity buzzes through the air, tasting sweet and of nostalgia for the summer. The bricks of the buildings are weathered, beaten down by years of rain and the ever-shifting life of the city, moss spreading over them like a blanket. Above, the sky is dark and endless, a black void hidden by rain with the dark tops of the buildings blending into it. In the gaps of the cobblestone paths, weeds thrive in between the rocks, spilling onto the pathway like the legs of a spider. The street is narrow. The rain is silver. Steve exhales.

They find the building quickly, he and the STRIKE team with their dark gear and efficient movements. Steve had shook hands with one of them, Rumlow, he discovered, and had swallowed down the bitterness in the back of his throat as though it were alcohol and gave him his all-american smile of white teeth that taste of bleach. It is almost startling, and nothing like the Howling Commandos, how they operate; they follow his orders as though it is law (and he supposes it is, a little) and keep their steady hands near their guns at all times. It is nothing like the Howling Commandos, but Steve reminds himself he has no right to be judgemental. 

They enter through the back, Steve with his shield in his strong grip and the STRIKE team with their guns drawn. The house is silent, except for the quiet breathing of Steve and the other agents, with the shutters over the windows and lights off. Even through the darkness, Steve can see with near perfect vision, splintered only by the beams of golden lights from the others’ torches that dart over the house. It is a big house, with a spacious kitchen and dining room, leading to a few separate hallways and an even bigger living room. Steve steps in something wet. He walks with bloody footprints.

“Check the other rooms,” he says, looking back briefly. Rumlow has his gun in front of him, and he is grinning. Steve inhales. “I’m going to look upstairs. Shout if there is trouble.”

Steve steps away from the group and grips his shield a little tighter. “You heard him. One of you comes with me.” Rumlow is still grinning. Steve exhales.

The stairs do not creak when he walks on them, which he finds odd for a house this old, but he continues and clenches his jaw, rounding the corner with blood in his ears. On the wooden floor, there is broken glass and a ripped photograph. He leaves bloody footprints and feels sick. The house is still silent. He leaves -

There is something in one of the bedrooms. Something is moving, rustling, and he can hear quiet footsteps that he shouldn't be able to hear. Steve pulls a gun from his belt, even if it is not his style, even if it is not - and slinks towards the bedroom, his heart feeling as though it is going to beat out of his chest. Adrenaline is flooding his veins, pushing his feet forward, one in front of the other, slowly, quietly, and he is inching closer closer closer to the door. There is blood on his soles.

He pushes the door open and - and, there is a body, and there is a rat, and the body’s flesh is yellow and decomposing and the rat is burrowing a hole in its stomach and Steve can see intestines and he can’t even tell what gender they are because their ribs have been pulled from their chest and there is an empty space where their heart should be and they are missing their fingers and eyes and the rat is eating from their stomach and and and and and

Steve leans to one side and vomits and heaves until his throat is burning as though it is on fire and there is still the _body_ and the rat and oh my god _ohmygod he can’t do this again he can't do this_. He can’t stop himself from looking and he doesn’t have to be a forensic to know the body has been here for a while, flesh decaying and skin hanging off its bones like it has been here for weeks. He's not sure how he didn’t smell it before, because all he can smell now is the putrid smell of decaying flesh (and burning bodies and for a second he’s not sure what year it is). Steve inhales, and there is blood on his shoes, on his hands, and there is -

\- a shout, from downstairs, someone’s shouting his name and he grabs his shield and tears down the stairs, pausing for one last glance at the body to fulfill his disgusting desire to make himself feel sicker than he already does, to make himself feel that disgusting churning in his stomach and that is what he is he is _disgusting._ The stairs don’t creak when he runs down them. He draws his gun, and inhales. 

“Rumlow?” He calls into the house, now spotting even more blood pooling on the floor and trails of red handprints on the white walls. The door to the cupboard under the stairs is open, and he runs towards it, down the stairs that lead from it to where he can hear fighting, bloody, dirty fighting that makes his bones ache with want. There is some kind of cellar beneath the house, and he can still smell (burning) bodies and see empty eye sockets when he blinks, burned behind his eyelids like a tattoo. He needs a distraction; he needs a fight. 

When he reaches the cellar, he takes a second to assess the situation before throwing himself in, fists flying in a way that it is so familiar he thinks he could do so with his eyes closed. There are two out of six of the STRIKE team laying on the floor, and at least six of the enemy? still conscious, fighting mostly with their fists, but at least three with knives. It is too close for guns, Steve half-thankfully notices, throwing his shield so it hits a man square in the chest and knocks him backwards. They are wearing armour, he realises, of the same darkness as the STRIKE teams’ and his own, but with black masks over their faces that conceal their identity. His skin is buzzing, and he is alive.

His shield reflects back to him and he uses it to smash another of the men in the head. He crumples. He is leaving bloody footprints. Another takes a desperate swing at him that he easily catches, bending back their arm until he hears a snap that makes something in his chest loosen, and this is it, this is _him; this_ is what he was made for. 

The rest of the fight passes in a blur of punches and blood in his teeth, something reckless he had forgotten existed bubbling in his blood. For the first time since coming out of the ice, he feels as though he can finally _breathe,_ feels as though he is finally alive. (He tries not to think what that means). In the haze of it all, he looks to the rest of the team. Rumlow is grinning. Steve is too. He inhales, and he can breathe. There is a body decaying upstairs. 

*

The flight on the quinjet back to D.C is spent in near silence. Steve thinks he might be sick. The buzz and adrenaline from the fight is wearing away and heaviness of what had happened is beginning to set it. When he blinks, he sees flesh eaten by insects and a rat in a gaping stomach and when he breathes he can smell (burning) bodies and death. The STRIKE team eye him half-warily, as he sits with his hands gripping the seat hard enough to leave dents and face emotionless, blood still in his hair and on his skin. They don’t ask and he doesn’t tell. His feet are numb. 

He's allowed to shower and change before they debrief, so he strips and leaves his suit in a bloody pile by the door, turning the shower on the hottest it will go before he steps in. Underneath the spray, his skin burns and he digs his nails into his thighs, breathing it, relishing in it, at the dotting bruises on his skin that have already begun to heal. Steve inhales. He feels so cold.

“What was upstairs, Cap?” Fury says, something knowing in his eyes that makes Steve antsy. 

He swallows the guilt and bile in his throat at the mention, maggot-infested flesh and a hollowed out stomach flashing in his vision. “There was a body,” he says quickly, clenching his hands into fists underneath the table. Rumlow looks at him over the large table with something unreadable on his face, the ghost of his grin still lingering on his lips. The STRIKE team eyes him half-warily. He is fine. “Dead. I’m no expert ( _isn't he, isn't he?_ ) but I would say it had been there for a few weeks. It was, erm, missing its _eyes,_ and fingers. A hole in its stomach, intestines...removed. Heart gone.” He thinks he might be sick so he digs his nails into his palms until his skin burns. He can still smell burning bodies. (It smells sweet).

The STRIKE team has sobered (but there is still something strange on Rumlow’s face that is making his skin crawl and he feels _sick_ ) and Fury raises his eyebrows. “Mutilation?” He writes something down that Steve can’t see. “I’ll have to get Romanoff to look into it.” Steve doesn’t ask why Natasha, and Fury doesn’t tell. 

“Is she here?” Steve asks out of genuine curiosity. He isn’t unobservant enough to not realise there is more to Natasha (and any of them) than it appears.

“Flying out tonight. If you want to see her, you’ll have to be quick.” Steve doesn't ask, and Fury doesn't tell. Steve stares at the table, and he feels so cold. 

  
  


*

  
Natasha joins him in a cafe a few blocks from SHIELD. He doesn’t ask her how she knew he was here because he knows she won’t tell. Her hair is a few shades darker than it was two nights ago and she is wearing blue contacts that clash a little strangely with the auburn of her hair, falling just to her shoulders in a dead straight curtain. Underneath her loose jeans and black sweater, he can faintly see the outline of knives strapped to her thighs and stomach.

He greets her with a smile of surprise as she sits on the other side of the small, circular table, in one of the back corners of the cafe so that less people look at him. An empty cup of coffee sits in front of him, and Natasha leaves for a minute, returning with two glasses of something sugary and light. “Try it,” she says. “You’ll like it.”

It isn’t as hot as he would have liked and it doesn’t burn his throat, he realises with a sick sense of disappointment, and it is sweet, so sweet he figures it must be more milk and sugar than coffee. It’s sweet and doesn’t burn, but it is nice and Natasha likes it and it doesn’t remind him of the almost gross coffee he and Bucky used to drink in their little one-bedroom apartment, with the creaking floors and beaten down table, curtains some ugly shade of brown that they had both hated but never changed. 

Natasha carefully watches him over the top of her own cup and he smiles approvingly. “It’s nice,” is all he says. He’s not sure why she’s here still. 

“Are you okay,” she asks. “I heard your mission was…” She grimaces, curling her hands around her mug with her perfectly painted nails glittering in red. 

He shrugs, knows this is some kind of test. “I’m fine,” he says automatically.” She looks at him pointedly. “I will be fine.”

“You don't have to do it alone, Steve.”

“I know.”

  
  
  


“Has Stark called you yet,” she asks a while later, and Steve freezes, snapping his eyes up to meet hers. 

“ _Stark?_ What does he want?” It comes out sounding more bitter than he wanted it to and Natasha huffs out a quiet laugh. Her lips curl and she props her chin on the heel of her hand, watching him with those sharp, glass eyes of hers. 

“He hasn’t then, I take it?” Steve shakes his head, tongue feeling like sandpaper. Stark’s words are still echoing in his mind and he doesn’t want to admit he might be right, doesn’t want to admit he might be nothing more than a weapon with too-white teeth and bones aching from a century too long of living. 

He frowns, and his fingertips are tingling with numbness. “What does he want?” He repeats, forcing himself to sound more casual and less strained even though his stomach is churning with anxiety. 

“I’ll tell you, so you can prepare yourself before he tells you himself but you have to at least _try_ to act surprised when he does.”

“Oh no.”  
  
Natasha gives him a half smile that he thinks is more genuine than he’s ever seen her and says, “he wants us all to move into Stark tower.”

Steve thinks he might be sick. “He _what?_ ”

“Don’t tell him I said this but, I think he gets lonely in that tower all by himself, especially after Afghanistan.” She tilts her head to one side, watching him, waiting. He digs his fingers into his thighs and he thinks he might die. 

He hopes he doesn’t look as panicked as he feels, but Natasha’s looking at him with concern on her face and he grips his thighs a little tighter. “I - I don’t know if I _can.”_ He finds himself saying despite himself. Natasha is watching him and he feels so cold, feels it heavy in his bones, in his very core, pulsing with his heart in his chest. He is so _cold_ and he thinks he might be sick. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I already have an apartment in Brooklyn _._ I’m not sure if i’m ready for that yet?”

Natasha gives him a sympathetic look. “That's understandable, and I get it, but please do consider it before he calls. I know you two didn’t get off on the right foot but, he’s not bad when you get to know him, I promise.” He’s about to ask her how she knows that, but then decides he doesn't really want to know. He nods, keeping his eyes on his hands so he doesn’t have to look at her. 

“Okay,” he says, “I’ll think about it.”

  
  


“Bye, Steve, take care of yourself” she says, and he replies with “you too, Natasha,” with a coldness in his bones. He knows that she is half-babysitting him, probably making sure he doesn't jump off the nearest building at the first chance he gets. But - but, he enjoys her company so keeps his mouth shut, even if he is still counting down the minutes until he can go home and stare at nothing for hours and wait for his phone to ring and worry himself sick. 

As she leaves, she takes some sunglasses from her pocket and puts them on, turning around briefly to give him one last glance. She smiles, and he smiles back, brushing a hand through his hair as he stands and gives one last look at the café.

It is small and quiet, the last few customers trickling out as they prepare to close for the evening. Behind the counter, a woman with blonde hair and smokey makeup is eyeing him, her glittering eyes half-lidded and long nails tapping against the dark wood. He steps onto the busy streets and tries to shake the unease that flutters across his skin. The night is somehow warm. And he is very cold. 

He ends up walking for a while. The sun has sunk behind the city and although it is night time it is not dark, the streets flashing with lights and life. Steve counts the hours by how much his stomach aches and almost forgets he lives in _Brooklyn_. He forgets a lot in the future (the present, he has to remind himself, because this is it this is the present this is it), and as he walks down the blaring streets he can almost imagine he doesn't exist at all.

He can almost imagine that he is not here, and he is somewhere dirtier and poorer with dusty alleyways and dry laughter that feels like home. In his world he is small, and he is sick, and he sometimes wonders how he is going to survive the next few months, but - but, in his world Bucky holds his hands and he cleans the blood from his face and puts his arms around his shoulders and he knows he is home. In his world he would be dead by now. 

His feet are numb. He finds himself staring at the same street he has seen before, the lights blurring into each other, into the pavements that are now wet even though he can't remember it raining. At some point, he gets in a car.

The driver is a woman with big hooped earrings and a chain around her neck. The metal is gold, glinting in the lights of the car, shimmering, reflecting in the glittering windshield, and Steve can't seem to keep his eyes off her sparkling jewellery even though he isn't quite sure why. He rests his chin on his palm in the back seat of a car he can't quite remember getting in and stares at the windshield absentmindedly, feeling as though his body isn't here at all, as though he himself does not exist at all. 

She catches his gaze in the windshield and smiles and Steve notices the gap between her teeth, the way her lipstick slightly overlines her lips in a way he thought should look silly but doesn't. He thinks that he says something to her but can't quite remember what. She smiles at him wider, and he has to remind himself he is alive. 

*

His apartment is as perfect as he left it. The air tastes of bleach and disinfectant and he half wonders what it would taste like in his mouth, what it would feel like: the burn, the ache as it sets his throat on fire, the weight of mortality in his teeth. How bright would he burn? How bright would his skin glow as he writhes, death sliding a hand down his throat and its other up his thigh. Would he finally see Bucky on the other side, looking as he did in those final minutes with his chapped lips and cracked teeth? Would he hold his hand and burn so brightly he is brighter than the stars, than the God he’s not sure he believes in anymore?

He walks to his bathroom and sits on the floor, gets the bleach from underneath the sink and holds it in his hands as if it is a Bible. His hands are steady in a way they shouldn't be. His heart is slow. He thinks he should feel something more - surprise, fear, at himself and at his mind, but he doesn't. He sits on his bathroom floor with a bottle of bleach his Bible and stares at the tiles.

He can’t feel anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not very happy with this chapter At All, and i feel like im losing something in my writing? but.


	4. i've got nothing much to live for, ever since i found my fame.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It goes like this: Clint has made sandwiches and Bruce has made salad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for : self harm (kinda??), depersonalisation, dissociation, suicidal thoughts/ ideation.

**IV. I'VE GOT NOTHING MUCH TO LIVE FOR, EVER SINCE I FOUND MY FAME**. 

It's not that Tony doesn't _like_ him, it's just - there is something that gets under his skin, something that makes him want to get a rise out of him because he is too quiet and calm and collected and it pisses him off a little. Sometimes, Tony will find him staring out one of the windows onto the endless body of New York with something vacant on his face, and sometimes when someone speaks to him it takes a second to realise what has happened, and sometimes - 

It goes like this: he’s not disappointed, he tells himself, it’s just - it’s just, he can’t help but have imagined something _more,_ someone more like his dad has described him to be over and over again instead of appreciating what he had right in front of him and - he is not bitter (he tells himself). But he doesn’t hate him, because he’s not sure if he can, even if he has perfect teeth and perfect eyes and -

It goes like this: Tony walks into the communal kitchen sometime just after midnight, and the sky is dark, and it is glittering, and Rogers’ face is painted in the silver glow of the moonlight as he stares out of one of the windows, looking as though someone has just died (and he supposes, they had, really). There is a sketchbook in one hand and a pencil in the other. From over the island in the centre of the kitchen, he can see the pages are blank. The pencil is very sharp. Tony makes his way to the coffee maker.

“Coffee?” He calls, watching Rogers’ reflection stay completely unresponsive for a second before he reacts, snapping his head so fast Tony is surprised his neck isn’t broken. He lifts a mug over his face. 

Rogers shakes his head weakly and the pencil slips from his hand before he catches it without looking, and it is a glaring reminder that this man is not like him - he is strong and tall and _perfect,_ he thinks with Howard’s voice. “No, thank you, Tony,” he says, suddenly realising that he has been asked something - and Tony is not bitter; he is not bitter at all.

It goes like this: Tony gets his coffee and Rogers turns back to the window, as detached as ever with his stupid blond hair and clear skin and sad eyes and -

It goes like this: Tony leaves. 

*

It goes like this: Steve wakes up. He stares at the white ceiling until his alarm goes off at 5am and then he showers until his skin is red and then he dresses. He goes for a twenty mile run and is back by 6:30. He showers again. 

It goes like this: he eats breakfast at 7. Sometimes Natasha joins him, but not very often, because she is a very busy woman who does not have time for babysitting men that should be dead. Today, she sits beside him with a bowl of cereal and fruit, as he stares at his own plate of toast and picks it apart before he eats it. (He can almost imagine his mother's disapproval. Then he remembers his mother is dead). 

Bruce sometimes joins them, too, but it is even more rare than Natasha because he is often working on something in the strange hours of the morning and isn't awake at 7am. He mostly eats alone, and it's fine, he's not too bothered, because there is no one to watch him and he can eat as little or as much as he would like without anyone else's scrutiny. 

“You got any plans for today?” Natasha asks over a mug of coffee.

Steve shrugs, stands up with his plate in one hand and phone in the other. “Not really,” he says, “though I told Fury to call me if there was anything available.”

Natasha frowns and Steve puts his plate in the dishwasher. “You just went on a mission,” she says, as though he has forgotten (and he can smell burning bodies, rotting flesh, a hollowed out stomach).

“Two weeks ago,” he argues. 

It goes like this - 

When he leaves, he gives her a small smile that she doesn’t return. His bones are itching for something to do, hands itching for something to punch. He makes his way to the gym with his heart in his throat, praying to something he isn't sure is a god that it is empty. 

It is, and he breathes a sigh of relief, and he wraps his hands with clumsy fingers. A sick kind of excitement pulses through his blood and he thinks he might be smiling, thinks he might be _grinning._ Overhead, the lights are white and fake, and his skin looks very pale, stretched over brittle bones and purple veins and he feels so _disgusting,_ feels as though this body is not his own and this prison is made out of (decaying) flesh and -

He is grinning and he feels so disgusting. The lights are very bright.

*

It goes like this: blood is seeping through the tape and there are little smudges of red on the bag, but it is not obvious, and he doesn’t think it is noticeable unless you _look_ for it and he’s not sure if anybody would be looking for blood on the punching bags but - He throws the tape in the bin and covers it with paper towels so that it is not obvious, rinsing his hands in the sink and watching as the water bleeds pink as it swirls down the drain. In minutes, his skin is already beginning to knit together and he clenches his fist to pull the skin apart, although he’s not too sure why and he can’t think of much at all.

Then - there are footsteps behind him that he registers a second too late, and he spins, shoving his hands into his pockets even though they are still a little damp and the fabric scratches across his knuckles. Then - Natasha takes a bottle and a bandage from her little handbag and holds out her hand for him to take. He looks at her quizzically, and she frowns, the red curtains of her hair brushing over her shoulders. “Give me your hands,” she says. Steve raises his eyebrows, but pulls his hands from his pockets and holds them in front of his.

By now, they are almost healed and it is difficult to see where they had split and Steve breathes a sigh of relief, Natasha looking at his hands with a deflated sense of responsibility. She shakes her head and puts her things back in her bag at the same time he says, “I’m fine,” and flexes his hands, relishing in the dull sting that still lingers. 

“Wrap your hands next time.” He figures it would be stupid to tell her than he did.

He shrugs. “I forgot,” he says, and she keeps looking at him for an uncomfortable moment before she pushes her bag onto her shoulder and holds out her other for him to take. He slips his arm through hers and she drags him from the gym. The floor is very cold.

“Where are we going?”

She smiles. “Lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“Lunch.”

  
  


Lunch, as it turns out, is the team in the too-big communal kitchen with the too bright lights and cold floors. Natasha pulls him into the seat beside her and next to Bruce and he folds his arms over his chest, suddenly feeling very anxious that he hasn’t had time to _prepare_ for social interaction before he's forced into it. He clenches his fists to make them ache. 

It goes like this: Clint has made sandwiches and Bruce has made salad and Tony has too much room in his fridge so he fills it with things Steve has never eaten nor heard of. It is very strange, and his feet are very cold, and his lips are tingling, and Natasha keeps pushing sandwiches and salad onto his plate and he feels too awkward and rude to refuse. He eats mechanically and slowly while trying to think of an excuse to leave; he knows he is being ungrateful.

He knows he is being ungrateful, because there is a beautiful woman to his left and he’s living in a billionaire’s tower and this should be everything he wants and more but - but he knows better to objectify Natasha like that because she is so much _more_ that just a beautiful woman, and the tower is cold, bright and artificial with a bodiless voice in the walls. It is everything he should want but doesn’t, because he can’t help but long for the hot dusty nights of August, skin pink and shining as Bucky hums somewhere in their apartment, leaving Steve to paint the endless skies of Brooklyn even if the colours aren’t quite right. Natasha pushes the salad towards him. 

He misses Bucky so much his bones ache. 

*

It’s not that Natasha is _worried_ , because she knows that will do no good. She knows Steve can look after himself, because he is a soldier not a child and he has a heart of gold. She goes to the gym seeking consolation and leaves with a beautiful man on her arm and a tenderness in her chest. He reminds her of someone she’s not sure she wants to remember anymore. She swallows the thought.

“Lunch,” she says, as she drags him from the gym. He follows with no protest. She knows he can look after himself.

*

He escapes to his floor soon after Natasha and Clint leave and the quiet is comforting, seeping into his bones as he goes to sit by the window. The walls are white and bare, and all the furniture is modern and strange and makes him feel even more alienated than he already does. He’s not trying to be ungrateful. He’s not quite sure who he is anymore.

In the glass, his reflection stares back with too-wide shoulders and a too-thick neck, his jaw too strong, arms too toned, but when he squints he thinks he can imagine thin wrists and slenders fingers (artist’s fingers, Bucky used to say), veins prominent under papery skin. When he squints, he can see Manhattan the way it used to be, the way _he_ used to be. He’s not trying to be ungrateful. He doesn't know who this man in his reflection is. 

The minutes pass, or maybe the hours (or maybe the years, something says in the back of his mind says, ugly and bitter), and the sun begins to dip behind the skyline. Steve stands, forces himself to tear his eyes from the window and walks to the bathroom, showers, the scalding water still not managing to chase away the cold that has made home in his bones. He lays in bed for twenty minutes and watches the sunset melt across the sky, half-wonders how Bucky would describe it if he were here. 

(Bucky was the poet of the two, Steve used to say, and he the artist. Bucky could make even the ugliest things sound pretty with his words. He said that after the war (but it never ends, does it, Steve can’t help but think) they would travel America, and Steve could paint and Bucky would write, and everything would be different but everything would be _good_ ).

It goes like this: he finds himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror, too-big hands gripping the sink. It goes like this: he can’t stop staring in the mirror and seeing a man that isn’t _him._ It goes like this: he’s not sure which is him and which is not. He’s not sure why he is so fucking cold even though he is wearing one two three sweaters and he’s not sure why the sink is cracking underneath his fingertips because he is not fucking _strong._ It goes like this: he’s pulling his hair to distract himself from the fact that this man in the mirror is not _him_. It goes like this: the man in the mirror is crying and his fingernails have blood in them and he is so fucking ugly Steve wants to kill him. It goes like this: he wishes he was dead. It goes like this - 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would just like to say: thank you for everyone that has read, given kudos and commented on this fic!! it is such a great feeling to know that people are actually enjoying this, so thank you so so much :) (comments especially - they make me smile so much)
> 
> also! im such a sucker for steve!angst fics but i can't find anymore than i haven't read so please comment any of your faves!! 
> 
> finally, this chapter is quite a lot shorter than the rest and i wrote most of it in a few hours today. do you guys prefer shorter, more frequent chapter or longer, less frequent chapters?


	5. i can't survive, if this is all that's real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He nods. 
> 
> And then: “Are you - are you SHIELD?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter isn't very long again, sorry!! it has been so difficult to write for some reason, so i kinda just wanted to finish it so i can move on!
> 
> tw for: dissociation and suicidal thoughts, minor self harm.

**I CAN'T SURVIVE, IF THIS IS ALL THAT'S REAL.**

If he concentrates, he can hear their hearts beating. If he concentrates, he can see the sweat beginning to bead on their necks, foreheads, hands. If he concentrates, he can see that they are very anxious. He is not. He is nothing at all. 

He keeps his expression neutral, and they do too, although he can hear their hearts beating like drums underneath their skin, veins pulsing in their neck, nails scratching against their palms. He waits, one hand on his shield and the other on his commlink, counting down the hours the minutes the seconds until the targets are in position. He can’t quite remember where they are.

After a few minutes, the targets stop moving; they stand, a few feet apart, backs to the windows. “Now.” Steve says. The glass shatters. The walls are sprayed in red. His hands, too. 

*

Natasha is waiting in his suite for him when he gets back with files on the table and a look of displeasure on her face. She looks up when he enters but stays silent, and he wants nothing more than to sit in the shower for maybe a few hours and then go and lay in bed for a few days. “What are you doing?” He asks, slipping off his shield even though it still has a little blood on it. It’s fine; he’ll clean it later. 

She frowns and something in her expression crumples, but she knows better to pity him and he knows better than to ignore her. “What’s going on, Steve?” She says, and he freezes, looks back at her with surprise carved into his face. 

“What do you mean?” He begins loosening the straps of his uniform for something to do with his hands, even though they are shaking a little and he keeps losing his grip on the buckles. He looks at his feet. 

Natasha scoffs and he hears the shifting of the files. He doesn’t look away from the floor. “You know what I mean,” she says, “you’re running yourself to the ground, Steve. I don’t want to be the one Fury calls when you’ve finished digging your own grave.”

“Then don’t be,” he says quickly, because he knows it will surprise her and he knows it will sting. He pulls off his boots and makes his way to his bedroom, Natasha’s scrutinizing gaze burning into his neck. 

“Why are you being so difficult?” He doesn’t pause and instead throws a look over his shoulder, and Natasha is standing now, hands on her hips and irritation in her eyes, staring at him as if he is going to shatter before her feet. It angers him, and he’s not sure why, but there is the desire to punch something fizzing in his fists. 

“I don’t want your help,” he retorts, and he doesn’t, and not from  _ Natasha  _ of all people. 

He can imagine her rolling her eyes behind him and he pauses by the door frame as she says, “maybe it’s not about what you want.”

“I don't care.”

“Don't be childish. I want to help.”

“I don't want your  _ fucking _ help, Natasha!” He spits, because he is very angry and very tired and logically he knows he should not be bringing this out on Natasha but he wants to lay in bed and maybe die. 

He hears his front door slam the same time he slams the one to his bedroom, and he leans against it, sinks to the floor and digs his nails into his scalp. He's shaking although he's not sure why. A scream builds in his throat. He thinks he's going to die. Fine.  _ Fine.  _

  
  


*

A few hours later (or maybe days, or maybe years) he comes back to himself. He is sat, still in his bloody uniform, in the shower, the spray hot and scalding. He doesn’t feel it. Fine. Light filters through the frosted window, pink and blushing and sparkling on the shiny, bleached floors. The water is pink, too. Fine.

He leaves his suit in a bloody pile in the bath and crawls into bed, basking in the rose light of the sunset as he lays still, staring at the ceiling with heavy eyelids and heavier bones. He doesn’t sleep, doesn’t think he can, (“I’ve slept for 70 years, sir,” he says, “think I’ve had my fill.”) and instead watches the ceiling, finding colours he didn’t know existed in the white. Anxiety pulses through his veins instead of blood. He doesn’t sleep.

Vaguely, he knows he should apologise to Natasha, maybe offer to buy her coffee or something as an apology, but he is so  _ tired  _ and he can’t quite remember what they even argued about and half-wonders if it ever happened at all. The windows are black. He can’t remember when that happened. Fine.    
  
The bed is very soft. The floor is not. 

*

Natasha hovers by his door for a moment before she knocks, listening for any movement inside. She is calm now, the irritation still simmering in her chest overshadowed by worry (“I think someone is going to regret it,” she says.”). It is silent. She mutters, “god dammit, Steve.” The door says - 

The apartment is the way it was five hours ago, bleached and spotless, looking more like a show home than a place where someone lives. Something heavy and hopeless settles in her chest and she tries not to stare too long at the almost empty bookshelves, eyes sliding over the empty walls, the empty memories. The door to the bedroom is still shut, slammed, and there are faint stains of red fingertips on the perfect white of it. Her stomach churns. She can smell blood. Fine.

His uniform is a mess of blood-caked material by the bathroom door and there is a ring of pink in the bathtub. Her stomach churns. 

“Steve?” She calls. The door says - 

She steps around his uniform and winces at the bloody footprints on the white floor, still glittering and sparkling like everything in this tower does and forever will. The apartment is very quiet. 

  
  


Steve is laying on his bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling as though it is a god he has finally found, hands clasped over his chest as though in prayer. He doesn't look when she walks in and she wonders if he has noticed she is here at all. She lays next to him in silence. The floor is very cold. They are silent. 

Outside, the sky is dark, and the flashes of passing cars illuminate his face in moments of pale skin shadowed by exhaustion, heavy eyes searching for something that doesn't quite exist. She half-wonders what would happen if she touched him. She doesn't. 

"I'm sorry," he says after a while. She looks over, and his eyes are half-lidded, half-dead. He doesn't meet her gaze, and she shrugs. 

"It's okay."

He pushes up onto his elbows and frowns, “Nat,” he says, something desperate and sad in his voice. 

“Steve, it's-”

He stands, suddenly, hands gripping his hair as he breathes raggedly. “I - no it's  _ not _ , Nat. You - I'm sorry.” He sits down on his bed and stares at the wall, hands now on his thighs, nails tinged with pink. 

Natasha stays on the floor, watches him curiously in silence. She is very good at figuring people out, but Steve is different, moods changing so quickly it gives him whiplash, so angry and sad in a century not quite his. She thinks he surprises even himself; she thinks that's why she likes him. 

“I know you're trying to help,” he says eventually, and does not meet her eyes, and she rolls onto her side and holds her head on her palm. “I'm sorry.”

Languid, like a cat, like a thief, like a lover, she licks her lips, looking up at him through her lashes. She half-wonders what would happen if she kissed him. She does not. “I don't want to make you do something you don't want to,” she says, breathes deeply through her nose as he grimaces, “but I don't want to see you like this, Steve.”

He scowls and pulls himself tighter, finally meeting her gaze with steely eyes. “Like what?” 

“Steve,” she tries, warningly. “I didn't come here to argue.”

He crumples again, suddenly, so quickly his mind and his body almost seem unconnected. “I know. I'm sorry.”

She waits. He is silent. “I think you should see a therapist.”

“I don't need a shrink.”

“Doesn't mean you shouldn't.” 

He frowns. “Nat, I - ”

“Steve, just try, please.” She pouts. “For me?”

Rolling his eyes, he laughs, but it is hollow and bitter and sad and it makes her feel a little sick. For a moment, she thinks he is going to argue and she narrows his eyes, but he looks at the wall and his shoulders slump, before he tilts his head back so he is looking at the ceiling. “Fine,” he says, and doesn't look at her.

Natasha smiles, stands and pats him on the shoulder. “I'll text you some good ones.” He offers her a small smile. 

“Okay,” he says. Natasha leaves, and he flops down onto the bed. 

  
  


*

He scrubs his apartment with bleach until it shines and then some. The familiarity of the aches in his knees is soothing and he bites back each pained hiss of breath through perfect teeth that don’t quite feel like his own in an effort to remember where he came from. He’s trying not to look at his reflection in these rooms of bleached mirrors, but the floors are white and the lights are white and he can feel it all and then some. Something violent and reckless is festering in his bones and rotting his teeth. He can’t help but imagine what it feels like to die. He can’t help but think it is this. He can’t help but hope it is.

This is it! This is it! This is it! 

*

“I'm worried about him,” Natasha says, and Bruce frowns, looks up from his tea as Natasha sits opposite him. 

“Steve?”

She grimaces. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” Bruce says. “Why?”

Looks at her hands, she says, “he’s working himself too hard. He’s taking too many missions with too little time in between,” and half-wonders when she began to care.

“I’m sure he can take care of himself, Natasha. Have you spoken to him?”

“That’s why I’m here.” She pulls her phone from her pocket and hands it to Bruce. “You know the good therapists, right?”

*

(Bucky says, “Steve, what the  _ fuck _ ?” and Steve says, “Bucky I -” and Bucky says -)

He sprays the bathtub with something that smells like lemon and hospitals and wipes it with a cloth that smells like fevers and rust. His mind is both frantic and numb; these hands that he doesn’t think are his own are moving too quickly for his mind, and he can’t seem to count his breaths before losing count at around 17 each time and -

(The sun is rising over the horizon, and Bucky is golden, and he is divine, and Steve thinks he might have found god in this man who is too beautiful for someone like him, all sharp edges and ribs and a pride too goddamn big to swallow that it bleeds from a split lip and black eye).

This is it! This is it! This is it! 

* * *

  
  
  


Dr. Robinson is a very tall woman with short dark hair and bright teeth. She greets him with a smile but not a handshake and sits opposite him on a large leather chair, her expression relaxed and friendly and he can tell she is very good at this. He’s not sure if it is comforting or not, unsure if he wants this woman to be able to read him as though she is Natasha. But - but he said he would at least  _ try,  _ so he smiles back at her and tries to look as though he doesn’t  _ quite _ want to die every time he’s left alone with his thoughts for more than ten minutes. 

“So, Steve - can I call you Steve?” She begins. He nods. “I’m Dr. Claire Robinson but you can call whatever you would like. I would like to use this session for us to get to know each other a little, understand what is going to happen, and briefly discuss why you are here, is that okay?” 

He nods. 

And then: “Are you - are you SHIELD?” 

She gives him a sympathetic smile and adjusts her blazer so that he can see her badge, and he nods, smiles, something like a bitter sense of satisfaction that she assumed he would be comforted knowing she was SHIELD behind his teeth. “Okay,” he says. She smiles, so he does back. It feels plastic. 

“Do anything interesting this week?” Dr. Robinson asks, and he stares at her for a hopeless second before he realises that she is trying to be  _ friendly.  _ He looks at his hands, and then back up, and he’s trying to think of something to say but it is difficult to think of something  _ interesting  _ he did this week when he can hardly remember what happened at all.

It is almost - it is almost as though he is watching himself in a movie, he realises, even though that does not make sense and it should not make sense because he is here and this body is his (“so why doesn’t it feel like it?” the walls say). He shrugs, says, “no, not really,” and he can’t quite remember where he lives. The walls say -

They do nothing but talk about Steve’s life since waking up and by the end of the hour he somehow feels impossibly worse. She hands him an array of pamphlets which he folds and puts in his pocket without looking at them. She smiles, so he does back. She doesn’t shake his hand. His hands are shaking.

  
  


In his pocket, his phone vibrates. His bed is very cold. 

It is from Natasha, and there are texts from a few days ago he can’t remember sending.  _ How was it? _ It reads. 

Steve hesitates, fingers hovering over the screen for a second before he types  _ better than I thought  _ and flips over his phone. It feels fake, but he hopes now at least she will stop worrying about him. He brings his knees up to his chest and rests his cheek on them, his eyes slipping shut as his heart thuds in his chest, chlorine and summer and red eyes dancing in the fragile veins of his eyelids. The world is a dream that doesn’t quite exist. Fine. The walls say - 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this is my least favourite chapter so far, it was so hard difficult to write and it feels so awkward and gross? 
> 
> also, i hope i am not doing too bad with the dissociation aspects of this. ive done some research, but please please tell me if there is anything i should change or add in! this is kind of turning into my projecting my own feelings into steve whoops, so im sorry if it ever seems inconsistent/ooc. 
> 
> finally, bucky will be here soon!!!! i think. 
> 
> i hope u enjoyed this! as always, i love all feedback :)


	6. flames so hot that they turn blue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It feels like this: the apartment has the same dead feel as his one in Stark Tower, empty and white, as though there is still the ghost of someone long dead still roaming these empty halls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am the WORST author ever im sorry for the long wait and mediocre chapter ah ! i had most of this written and then i just ,,, procrastinated writing the rest for so long until tonight, so i kinda forgot where i was going with it. yikes.

**FLAMES SO HOT THAT THEY TURN BLUE**

It is winter, in the early months of the new year, and the sky is burning. Natasha pulls her hood over her face, skin prickling with cold, anticipation, in the frozen air, static as it hangs in a heavy frigid cloud above the street. Something in the back of her mind half-knows that this is wrong, that she should turn back now and spend another hour texting him before he replies a day later like he doesn’t quite know how time passes anymore, but it feels like protection, like safety, even if she doesn’t quite know what that means and she thinks maybe never has. But she figures it might feel like this: a heavy ache in her chest for a man longing for something he can’t have. She doesn’t quite know who he is yet.

It feels like this: the apartment has the same dead feel as his one in Stark Tower, empty and white, as though there is still the ghost of someone long dead still roaming these empty halls. Pulls on her gloves and locks the door behind her, taking care to be silent and faceless as she draws the blinds. (What the others dont know, won't hurt them. They don’t have to know anything).

She makes her way to his bedroom with quiet feet padding along the cream carpet, tracing her fingertips over the bare walls. The sunset streams through the windows, washes her in a tangerine glow as it spills with a sweetened softness too tender for January, shimmering in fragments of washed-out orange on the shining metal of his bed frame. Leant against the wall, there is a turned around mirror. Fine.

It feels like this: a bitterness on her tongue when she finds the bugs she had placed, wondering if he had ever found them himself but decided to keep quiet. They flash once twice three times four - in the palm of her hand, and they feel like lead when she slips them into her pockets, hissing like snakes when she holds them to her ears. She half-wonders if he could hear them. She half-hopes he hadn't, but she's a very clever woman. 

She sweeps the rest of the apartment quickly before she heads back into the bedroom, sits on the floor with her chin on her palm and legs crossed, hovering her fingertips over a little, leather bound book she had found underneath his mattress. Now that she’s here, she’s not sure she can leave quite yet. She flips it open. I’m sorry she thinks. (The book says - )

The pages are full of sketches that have been started but never quite finished, splashes of astray lines that never seem to get any further than looking like a vague semblance of a person. Dark eyes, flushed in the apricot light, and a strong jaw, splashes of red lips and sharp eyes lined with thick lashes, a soldier’s and a gun’s rough sketches overlapping slightly, as if he had begun to draw them but could not quite remember which is which by the end. Red lips and red teeth, bloody and beautiful, a hollow love for something violent and dark. I’m sorry she thinks, and the book says - Roses blooming in fields of red, hands curled around a bruising neck.

It is winter, and the sky is burning, and she closes the book with dread in her stomach, in her bones, writhing like insects in her chest. In her pockets, the bugs are hissing like snakes. 

*

He's walking over a bridge with the water below dark and churning.

And then: what if you jumped, something says. He stops, puts his hands on the railing and stares at the water. It grins. 

*

She puts the book back underneath his mattress and stands in front of his wardrobe, hands in her pockets. Running her tongue over her teeth, she pulls them open, stares at the little brown box for a second where she thinks maybe this is very very wrong and she should leave before she finds something she doesn’t want to. (What the others don’t know, won’t hurt them - they don’t have to know anything).

Heavy in her hands, she runs her thumbs over the lid, all weathered brown cardboard with the faint dents of fingertips in the side. (What the others don’t know, won’t hurt them - they don’t - ). It falls with a muffled thud as it hits the carpet, and she sits, crossing her legs with it in her lap, her hands streaked in soft colour. I’m sorry, she thinks, half-hoping he can hear her somehow through this cold January evening. 

There are watercolours, the box metal and expensive, and a slip of paper with an address she doesn’t quite recognise; she takes a pen and writes it on her palm. Beneath, there is an unopened letter, with Steve written on the front in almost shaky capitals. She holds it up to the window, so that the evening sunlight shines through the thin envelope and the hazy outline of a letter of more indistinguishable words written in that unsteady print shows through.

It feels like a heavy heartache in her hands. 

She puts it back, covers it with the lid and sits in front of the wardrobe in a kind of silence that seems to weigh heavy on her chest. (It feels like - ) It feels like protection.

*

The streets are busier than he can remember them being, and he half-wonders if his memories of Brooklyn are even memories at all, because he cannot imagine how these streets were ever what he remembers them to be, with their inky tarmac and bright lights and cars buzzing like bees in a hive.

Then: he wonders if it would kill him if he stumbled and - and now that he’s thought about it he can’t stop. 

(He feels so disgusting).

*

Clint is waiting for her when she returns, sitting on her kitchen table with a pizza box by his thigh. “Pizza?” He asks, and she rolls her eyes and takes the box to the living room, sliding it across the glass coffee table before she lays down on the sofa. Clint sits on the other side, and she throws her feet into his lap.

She takes the bugs from her pockets and holds them out in her palm, with the soft white lights from the kitchen spilling through the doorway and onto Clint’s raised eyebrows, hand frozen from where it was reaching towards the pizza. “Where are they from?” 

“Steve’s,” she says. At his questioning look, she adds, “I was worried, and it felt unfair to keep them there.” She shrugs and Clint narrows his eyes, leaning back against the colourful cushions as he stares.

“Worried about what?” He asks, because he knows Natasha well enough to know that Steve doesn’t know she went to his old apartment, but will not judge her for doing it because he knows how she works and she knows how he does, too. She takes a bite from her pizza. 

“Him.” He nods, as if he understands, although he doesn’t really - he hasn’t seen what she has seen: those haunted eyes, searching for something in his blank ceiling which will never exist again. There is a shard of a god in his mouth, bloody on his tongue as it glows golden like fire, but he is so detached from himself that she’s not quite sure if he knows that he is a person at all. 

She knows that she cannot judge. 

Clint closes his eyes as his head falls back, and he says, “Oh,” and then falls silent. It hangs between them, heavy but comfortable, the quiet humming of the radio shifting through the air in a blanket of muted noise. Sometimes, she forgets the world can be soft like this. It’s nice. “I'm sure he'll be fine.”

“I hope so.”

*

In the end he skips his therapy appointment. Anxiety blossoms in his chest at the thought of it, of Dr Robinson and her too-wide smile, so he instead spends the rest of his morning laying on top of his covers as the sunlight burns red behind his closed eyelids. He is acutely aware of the ache in his stomach, and that he hasn’t eaten since last night but - but he regards it as a reminder that he is here and that somethings will never change: the hunger, growling in his stomach as he shifts his legs before they turn numb, from not eating in far too long.

He likes the control it makes him feel, in the world where everything he thinks he has ever touched is spiraling from his hands. (He wonders if he could make it until night-time, figures he probably can because it isn’t like he is doing anything. The thought almost makes his smile. He feels so disgusting).

The morning melts by and he breathes, lets himself sink further into a state of dissociation he knows is unhealthy but too numbing to care, and tries not to think about all the people that are now dead. (Dum-Dum died two weeks before he was defrosted, and it feels like mockery, like this is the universe’s way to say fuck you for all the things he has done, the people he has killed. He can imagine them laughing at him, as he lays on his too-soft bed, wallowing in self-pity because that seems to be the only thing he really does anymore). 

By the time he almost feels whole again, he checks his phone to find he has sent an apology to Dr Robinson and even replied to Natasha, which he finds himself to be both grateful and worried for, half-wondering if he has done anything else he should be concerned about. 

He steps into his kitchen, and it smells like bleach and disinfectant, still, but he thinks it looks the same and he breathes a sigh of relief. Quickly, he checks the rest of the suite before he returns back to his bedroom, sits by the arching window and stares at the buildings. It’s still day-time. Thank God.

It takes a while to notice, but he doesn't feel very hungry anymore. The man in his reflection smiles.

*

He’s cutting carrots for the Team Weekly Dinner when it happens. 

Bruce is by his side, reading the back of a cardboard box with furrowed brows and squinting eyes, green sweater dusted by flour and glasses sparkling like glitter. “How do people even read this?” he mutters as he pulls it closer to his face. Steve huffs out something like a laugh and looks to the side and then -

And then: the knife slips, and he feels rather than sees it slice through his hand. White-hot pain laces up his arm and he stumbles, catching his breath in his throat before he can curse because that is what is expected from him, and who he thinks he must be. There is a grip on his arm, gentle and tender, that turns his palm upwards to the high, white ceiling that he has spent far too long staring at. Distantly, he hears the clatter as the knife hits the floor and the gushing of the tap, and he blinks, once-twice-three-times at the splattering of red on the floor. 

And then: the world catches up to him, and he realises how strange he must be acting for Bruce to be looking at him with his eyebrows pulled together and hands hovering over him, as though he isn’t sure if he is allowed to touch Steve (he isn’t, his mind demands). He spins around and holds his palm underneath the tap, and he is both surprised and unsurprised to realise that he can hardly feel it. But that’s fine - it's fine. 

Somebody throws a first aid kit to Bruce and he stands next to Steve, grimacing at the pink water that swirls in the sink. He holds out his hand for Steve to take, but he shakes his head, swallowing down the hysterics that are growing inside of his numb bones. “It’s ok,” he protests, and it strikes him that his hand is shaking a little, and there is somebody else hovering behind him and almost breathing down his neck; the closeness of it all is jarring and uncomfortable but he doesn’t know how to tell them to move without maybe crying so he just stands with his hands underneath the cold spray of the tap, feeling as though his body and mind are being pulled in and out of existence. “It will heal in a few minutes.”

Someone - Natasha - scoffs and lays a hand on his arm. It twitches. She lets go. He tilts his palm towards her and her heavy gaze is burning into his skin, but she stills and exhales a huff of breath against his cheeks when she sees his already knitting together skin. He cannot feel it. He’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

There is a thrumming in his body that feels like both poison and ichor as it runs through his veins. He is still bleeding a little, and he is surprised to see that it is not black. 

*

It almost feels like a dance: the way they gravitate around one another, unsure and unsteady on their feet because they are not quite sure who the other one is, and not quite sure who they are themselves. She cannot figure him out, because he cannot figure himself out, either, so he is a strange mixture of everybody he has ever met encased in this perfect body of a fierce righteousness and all-American rage. There is a part of someone she has tried to forget in the way he walks, in the way he moves, and she isn’t quite sure why so she pins into as being someone who has both outgrown their mind but has not grown into their body quite yet. 

She thinks of his normally steady hands trembling under the icy spray of the sink, artist’s fingers which have not drawn in far too long pink with his blood. She thinks of his sketchbook, in an apartment that was never really his, smudged with both charcoal and tragic memory, and a letter he has never been able to open. 

He sits beside her, now, around a white marble table which is gleaming with how bright the lights shine above, and he is talking quietly to Bruce with both fascination and confusion in his expression, twirling his fork around his fingers as if it were a paintbrush. She meets Bruce’s eye from across the table and smiles, and he does back instantly, genuinely, with his eyes creasing in the corners in the way they only do when he is being sincere. It’s nice to see, and sometimes she forgets the world can be soft like this. 

Tony clinks his spoon against his glass. They stop, and look at him with raised eyebrows and he brings his phone from his pocket. “So,” Tony begins, as the lights from his phone screen illuminate him in a soft blue glow, “as you all may know, Nick Fury has been recruiting us for our...talents.” He stops, grins, and reads something on his phone before putting it back in his pocket and glancing around the table. Out of the corner of her eye, Steve is frowning. “He wants us to go public,” he finishes quickly, and Natasha raises her eyebrows.

“Oh,” Bruce says.

“Before you complain, think about what this means. Talk-shows, public opinion, the press! Honestly, I’m not sure why we didn’t earlier - this is going to be fantastic!”

Steve ducks his head to whisper, “he’s being sarcastic, isn’t he?” A beat, “please tell me he’s being sarcastic.”

“Something you would like to share with the rest of the class, Cap?” Tony says, something challenging in his stare. She feels Steve stiffen beside her as he looks up and meets Tony’s gaze, eyes narrowed and daring. It’s the most emotion she’s seen on that pretty face of his for a while, but she tries not to think about that.

“How is this going to help anything?” Steve questions, and she figures she can understand his discomfort - being public means the public knowing about him, which means no more small coffee shops and early morning runs through the city being just another anonymous face, which means public speculation and reporters far too interested in his personal life and another couple hundred thousand people asking if he and Peggy Carter fucked before he died.

Tony crosses his arms. “Fury thinks it would be good for our image - and good public opinion will just make our lives a thousand times easier.” He shrugs. “People want to know someone is protecting them, and who better than the Avengers to do that.”

Steve does not look convinced nor conforted, but he just looks at his hands and stays quiet. She finds it jarringly unlike him. “So what?” She says. “We’re gonna have a press conference or something?” 

*

It is strange - the way they fall together, like pieces of a mismatched puzzle. Steve runs and time passes and he meets Sam Wilson and his kind smile - and everything falls together, and everything is strange, as though he is seeing it from the wrong perspective, or that each colour has been changed just enough to feel like something is wrong. 

He and Natasha circle each other and sometimes he will catch her watching him from afar, and sometimes she will catch him wondering how she can navigate through the world with such ease, when he spends a lot of his time wondering if he is really alive and counting the days since he died. 

And yet - he is walking with Sam Wilson through some city park with a cap pulled over his face to shield it from the press. The sky is blue, endless cerulean, and the sunlight shimmers through the icy air. 

“You should come by the VA tomorrow,” Sam says, and Steve looks at him over his shoulder. His teeth are shining in the sunlight. 

Steve nods. “Only if we go to the coffee place afterwards,” he replies, and Sam grins, and he thinks he might be, too.

“What is it with you and fucking coffee?” 

It reminds him of home, Steve doesn't say. 

*

The asset opens its eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally bucky !!!! i am also still trying to work out to to write this fic , because im planning it be the very canon divergent so i need to work out how to fit the events of tws into this. i apologize in advance is something is very different from what happens in canon, or if i gloss over any major canon event. im not a very good writer, lol. 
> 
> anyways, super sorry for the long wait! im not sure how long it will be until the next chapter. im not really doing Great™ at the moment, but hopefully i can get back into writing this soon, and please (please please) tell me what you think !!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! i love any feedback!!


End file.
